Job 19

²“How long will you torment me,

and crush me with words?

³You have reproached me ten times.

You aren’t ashamed that you attack me.

⁴If it is true that I have erred,

my error remains with myself.

⁵If indeed you will magnify yourselves against me,

and plead against me my reproach,

⁶know now that God has subverted me,

and has surrounded me with his net.

⁷“Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard.

I cry for help, but there is no justice.

⁸He has walled up my way so that I can’t pass,

and has set darkness in my paths.

⁹He has stripped me of my glory,

and taken the crown from my head.

¹⁰He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone.

He has plucked my hope up like a tree.

¹¹He has also kindled his wrath against me.

He counts me amongst his adversaries.

¹²His troops come on together,

build a siege ramp against me,

and encamp around my tent.

¹³“He has put my brothers far from me.

My acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.

¹⁴My relatives have gone away.

My familiar friends have forgotten me.

¹⁵Those who dwell in my house and my maids consider me a stranger.

I am an alien in their sight.

¹⁶I call to my servant, and he gives me no answer.

I beg him with my mouth.

¹⁷My breath is offensive to my wife.

I am loathsome to the children of my own mother.

¹⁸Even young children despise me.

If I arise, they speak against me.

¹⁹All my familiar friends abhor me.

They whom I loved have turned against me.

²⁰My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh.

I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

²¹“Have pity on me. Have pity on me, you my friends,

for the hand of God has touched me.

²²Why do you persecute me as God,

and are not satisfied with my flesh?

²³“Oh that my words were now written!

Oh that they were inscribed in a book!

²⁴That with an iron pen and lead

they were engraved in the rock forever!

²⁵But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives.

In the end, he will stand upon the earth.

²⁶After my skin is destroyed,

then I will see God in my flesh,

²⁷whom I, even I, will see on my side.

My eyes will see, and not as a stranger.

“My heart is consumed within me.

²⁸If you say, ‘How we will persecute him!’

because the root of the matter is found in me,

²⁹be afraid of the sword,

for wrath brings the punishments of the sword,

that you may know there is a judgement.”